Carr, W., & Kemmis, S.(1986).Becoming Critical: Education, Knowledge and Action Research.Routledge Farmer.
The aim of this chapter is to introduce some of the recent history of educational research three distinguishing features of professions: The authors suggest that there are three distinguishing features of professions:
the methods and procedures employed are based on a body of theoretical knowledge and research
an overriding commitment of their members is to the well-being of their clients
the ability of members to make autonomous judgments free from external non-professional controls and constraints
Further, theory and research play a much less significant part in teaching than they do in other professions.In fact the evidence that exists suggests that most teachers regard research as an esotericactivity having little to do with their everyday practical concerns.The authors suggest that educating requires a much more diverse range of skills than those required by other professions yet the area of teacher autonomy is severely limited and teachers have little control over the broad organizational context.
Also in this chapter, Carr and Kemmis (1986) provide a detailed review of the eight general traditions in the study of education.These include:
Philosophical Studies of Education: aim to discover the nature of knowledge and its role in political life
Grand Theorizing: Jean Jacques Rousseau (1762), nature provides the motive force for child development
The Foundations Approach: Two distinct types of research emerged: research on educational phenomena and service research
Educational Theory: Paul Hirst (1966), focus on nature rather than on practice of educational process
The Applied Science or Technical Perspective and the New Practicality: American curriculum movement began after the launch of Sputnik.Concern was the cultivation of the ‘whole man’.By the end of WWII behaviourist psychology and educational measurements were a strong influence.Curriculum became a means to an end and goals were decided before curriculum development could proceed.
The Practical: Schwab’s (1960’s) paper, The practical: a language for the Curriculum- he distinguished the theoretic approach from the practical. This publication reinstated practical judgment as an essential art in the doing of curriculum.
Teachers as Researcher: the need for teachers to be central to the curriculum exercise as doers, making judgments based on their knowledge and experience and the demands of practical situations
Emerging Critical Tradition: political changes in education have not been matched by intellectual changes in curriculum and the profession
The authors also explain the problem with defining ‘curriculum’ and the precise focus for researchers.Some have suggested that various types of foci are suitable and appropriate for curriculum research and that they can be related to one another.However, Carr and Kemmis (1986) explain the difficulties in devising a theoretical framework from which these foci could be related. Since there are so many foci for curriculum researchers, the authors briefly discuss five dimensions from which various kinds of curriculum research can be distinguished.These include:
Different Levels: Macro to Micro Perspectives: focus on the interaction between education and the structure of society, studies at the school level, and the specifics of interactions between teachers and students
Different Perspectives on the Character of Educational Situations: Systems view, humanistic approach, and political-economic structures
Different Perspectives on Educational Events as Objects of Study:abstract, universal categories, diverse and manifold, social-historical entities.The difference between qualitative and quantitative methods
Different Degrees of Intervention by the Researcher in the Situation Being Studied: Observations are thought to be theory and value laden.Action researchers aim at intervention but expect advances in understanding to be consequences of their real-world interventions
Carr and Kemmis (1986) suggest that there are five different views of what the professional competence of teachers involves in relation to curriculum research.
The Commonsense View: professional development simply requires an increasingly skillful use of an existing stock of pedagogical knowledge.
The Philosophical View: all those approaches which stress the need for teachers to adopt a reflective stance towards the fundamental assumptions and ideal s on which their ‘philosophy of education’ depends. Professional competence is the ability to make judgments in accordance with articulated principles, values and ideas.
The Applied Science View: professional development requires teachers to adopt a technical approach to their work by utilizing scientific knowledge.
The Practical Approach:how moral purposes are realized not by teaching but in and through teaching.
The Critical View:Individual practitioners must be committed to self-critical reflection on their educational aims and values. Theories are offered as interpretations which can only be validated in and by the self-understandings of practitioners under conditions of free and open dialogue. Professional development is a matter of teachers becoming more enlightened about their own self-understandings.
The authors then explain the difference between the major styles of thought pervading contemporary understanding of education, curriculum and teaching.These are the technical, practical and strategic views.
Technical View: more prevalent in our society.Treats educational provision as a set of means to given ends.Teacher’s knowledge is assumed to be about the means available and their relative effectiveness under different circumstances.Idea that teaching and curriculum are craftlike.
Practical View: believe that influence can only be exerted by practical deliberation and wise and prudent intervention into the life of the classroom. The educator uses professional judgment responsively guided by criteria based on experience and processes which separate good from indifferent or bad practice.
Strategic View: idea that educational activities are historically located. Education is also a social activity and intrinsically political. This educator submits part of their work to systematic examination and reflects critically on the situational constraints and practical potential of the strategic action being considered.
Finally, the chapter concludes with a discussion of teacher’s knowledge which provides a starting point for critical reflection. Some of the knowledge includes folk wisdom, skill-knowledge, contextual knowledge, professional knowledge, educational theory and general philosophical outlooks.
Glossary of terms:
esoteric:confined to and understandable by only an enlightened inner circle
telos: the attainment of knowledge for its own sake (p. 32)
poietike: ‘making action’ and is evident in craft or skill knowledge (p. 32)
techne: a disposition to act in a true and reasoned way according to the rules of the craft (p. 32)
praxis: informed action; changes the ‘knowledge-base’ which informs it (p. 33)
phronesis: moral disposition to act truly and justly (p. 33)
dialectical: the opposition of a thesis; involves searching out contradictions (p. 33)
Discussion:
How does the new designation of Ontario Certified Teacher (OCT) have the potential to impact the education profession?
How would the critical reflection of educators help to inform curriculum design and delivery?
What strategies can we use to include teacher autobiography as a required component of preservice education so that these future educators recognize the value of this critical reflection? Quotes:
“Even this very brief description of the characteristics of a profession is sufficient to convey some idea of the limited extent to which teaching, as we know it today, can legitimately be regarded as a professional activity” (p. 8).
“In this shift of emphasis, teachers became actors on the stage of education or, to use an unkinder image, operatives in its factories.The profound questions of education became the preserve of the academic designers of curricula, not teachers themselves” (p. 16).
“Moreover, the argue, our educational actions are consequences of our moral choices and commitments and can only be understood in the context of our values, aspirations and intentions.To these people, education can only be understood in terms of its meaning to those involved in the educational processes” (p 26).
“This critical self-reflection, undertaken in a self-critical community, uses communication as a means to develop a sense of comparative experience, to discover local or immediate constraints on action…and by converting experience into discourse, uses language as an aid to analysis and the development of a critical vocabulary which provides the terms for reconstructing practice” (p. 40).
Author Bios:
Wilfred Carr is Professor of Philosophy of Education at the University of Sheffield. Wilfred researches in the area of philosophy of education. His main interests surround a range of philosophical questions concerning the nature of `education´ and their significance for the ways in which educational theory, practice and research are currently interpreted and understood.
Stephen Kemmis is currently the Professor of Education and Director, Murray-Darling Education Consortium, Charles Sturt University, Wagga Wagga campus. He is also Professor Emeritus, University of Ballarat. A key aspect of his work since the late 1970s has been in developing the theory and practice of educational action research. Together with colleagues at Deakin and elsewhere, he has advocated “emancipatory action research” as a participatory form of research and evaluation which embodies the aspirations of a critical science of education. Participatory action research (PAR) is a way of working which helps teachers, students and communities to work individually and collectively in developing their practices, their understandings of their practices, and the situations in which they live and work – to transform the work, the worker and the workplace.
Action Research.Routledge Farmer.
The aim of this chapter is to introduce some of the recent history of educational research three distinguishing features of professions: The authors suggest that there are three distinguishing features of professions:
- the methods and procedures employed are based on a body of theoretical knowledge and research
- an overriding commitment of their members is to the well-being of their clients
- the ability of members to make autonomous judgments free from external non-professional controls and constraints
Further, theory and research play a much less significant part in teaching than they do in other professions.In fact the evidence that exists suggests that most teachers regard research as an esotericactivity having little to do with their everyday practical concerns.The authors suggest that educating requires a much more diverse range of skills than those required by other professions yet the area of teacher autonomy is severely limited and teachers have little control over the broad organizational context.Also in this chapter, Carr and Kemmis (1986) provide a detailed review of the eight general traditions in the study of education.These include:
Curriculum- he distinguished the theoretic approach from the practical. This publication reinstated practical judgment as an essential art in the doing of curriculum.
The authors also explain the problem with defining ‘curriculum’ and the precise focus for researchers.Some have suggested that various types of foci are suitable and appropriate for curriculum research and that they can be related to one another.However, Carr and Kemmis (1986) explain the difficulties in devising a theoretical framework from which these foci could be related. Since there are so many foci for curriculum researchers, the authors briefly discuss five dimensions from which various kinds of curriculum research can be distinguished.These include:
Carr and Kemmis (1986) suggest that there are five different views of what the professional competence of teachers involves in relation to curriculum research.
The authors then explain the difference between the major styles of thought pervading contemporary understanding of education, curriculum and teaching.These are the technical, practical and strategic views.
Finally, the chapter concludes with a discussion of teacher’s knowledge which provides a starting point for critical reflection. Some of the knowledge includes folk wisdom, skill-knowledge, contextual knowledge, professional knowledge, educational theory and general philosophical outlooks.
Glossary of terms:
esoteric:confined to and understandable by only an enlightened inner circle
telos: the attainment of knowledge for its own sake (p. 32)
poietike: ‘making action’ and is evident in craft or skill knowledge (p. 32)
techne: a disposition to act in a true and reasoned way according to the rules of the craft
(p. 32)
praxis: informed action; changes the ‘knowledge-base’ which informs it (p. 33)
phronesis: moral disposition to act truly and justly (p. 33)
dialectical: the opposition of a thesis; involves searching out contradictions (p. 33)
Discussion:
How does the new designation of Ontario Certified Teacher (OCT) have the potential to impact the education profession?
How would the critical reflection of educators help to inform curriculum design and delivery?
What strategies can we use to include teacher autobiography as a required component of preservice education so that these future educators recognize the value of this critical reflection?
Quotes:
“Even this very brief description of the characteristics of a profession is sufficient to convey some idea of the limited extent to which teaching, as we know it today, can legitimately be regarded as a professional activity” (p. 8).
“In this shift of emphasis, teachers became actors on the stage of education or, to use an unkinder image, operatives in its factories.The profound questions of education became the preserve of the academic designers of curricula, not teachers themselves” (p. 16).
“Moreover, the argue, our educational actions are consequences of our moral choices and commitments and can only be understood in the context of our values, aspirations and intentions.To these people, education can only be understood in terms of its meaning to those involved in the educational processes” (p 26).
“This critical self-reflection, undertaken in a self-critical community, uses communication as a means to develop a sense of comparative experience, to discover local or immediate constraints on action…and by converting experience into discourse, uses language as an aid to analysis and the development of a critical vocabulary which provides the terms for reconstructing practice” (p. 40).
Author Bios:
Wilfred Carr is Professor of Philosophy of Education at the University of Sheffield. Wilfred researches in the area of philosophy of education. His main interests surround a range of philosophical questions concerning the nature of `education´ and their significance for the ways in which educational theory, practice and research are currently interpreted and understood.
Stephen Kemmis is currently the Professor of Education and Director, Murray-Darling Education Consortium, Charles Sturt University, Wagga Wagga campus. He is also Professor Emeritus, University of Ballarat. A key aspect of his work since the late 1970s has been in developing the theory and practice of educational action research. Together with colleagues at Deakin and elsewhere, he has advocated “emancipatory action research” as a participatory form of research and evaluation which embodies the aspirations of a critical science of education. Participatory action research (PAR) is a way of working which helps teachers, students and communities to work individually and collectively in developing their practices, their understandings of their practices, and the situations in which they live and work – to transform the work, the worker and the workplace.
Resources:
http://www.etfo.ca/Publications/NewPublications/ProfessionalLearningtoReshapeTeaching/Pages/default.aspx
http://www.metapress.com.myaccess.library.utoronto.ca/content/p473862455h50227/fulltext.pdf
http://www.oct.ca/publications/professionally_speaking/september_2009/feature_designation.asp